Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, greets members of the audience after speaking during the Road to Majority 2015 convention in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

(Newser)
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So Ted Cruz's book won't be listed among the New York Times' best sellers, even though it racked up about 12,000 sales in its first week. But if you think Cruz is angry, you've got it exactly backward, reports Politico. The feud is a sign that the "campaign gods are smiling down" on him, writes Dylan Byers. It's helping him among conservatives who loathe the paper as too liberal, and it's generating more attention for his book. If you missed the original controversy, the Times essentially accused the Cruz campaign of rigging the system by buying up books in bulk. But publisher HarperCollins disputes that, as does the campaign.

“The Times is presumably embarrassed by having their obvious partisan bias called out," says spokesman Rick Tyler. "But their response—alleging ‘strategic bulk purchases’—is a blatant falsehood." Tyler challenged the newspaper to present its evidence for the accusation. In a piece at the Washington Post headlined "Ted Cruz hits the jackpot: A book war with the New York Times," Philip Bump predicts an ironic conclusion to the tale: The book will eventually show up on the Times' list because all this attention will do wonders for authentic, no-doubt-about-it sales. "In which case Cruz gets the conservative cred of being blackballed by the Times and the PR bonus of being a Times bestseller. Win-win."

Hmmm. No follow up story yet. Turns out Amazon supports what the publisher says- no evidence of bulk sales. Interesting. . .

Twiny

Jul 12, 2015 9:31 AM CDT

I find it fascinating that people accuse the Times of political bias for not listing Teabagger Cruz's book on the best seller list, when the Times has routinely listed asshole conservatives in the top ten bestseller list. Bill-O has made the list, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, all have made the list. I suppose that it shouldn't be a surprise that conservatives don't let the facts get in the way of their bullshit rants...

JERZJOE

Jul 11, 2015 10:35 PM CDT

The NYT? Is that an ACTUAL newspaper? All the NEWS that's fits to Print even though it's a LIE! There ya go ALL!!